Dura-Europos under Parthian Rule army, took the investigation further. In some senses, nobody could have been
better equipped for the task. His great work on the monuments of the cult
of Mithra had been published in , hisReligions orientalesin , and his
Études Syriennesin . But, equally, the whole tendency and purpose of his
work lay in revealing the ‘‘oriental’’ element in later Graeco-Roman culture.
He too was to demonstrate an almost unbelievable energy and creativity in
relation to Dura. He spent there two periods of about four weeks each, in
October–November of and , on the basis of which he published
in his book of over pages,Fouilles de Doura-Europos, with a massive
historical introduction, reports of excavations of two temples, and observa-
tions on other areas of the site, as well as the publication of a substantial group
of documents on parchment, and of no less than inscriptions (stone-cut,
dipinti, and graffiti).
The two dominating figures in the great series of excavations which fol-
lowed were to be Cumont and M. I. Rostovtzeff, who was by now established
at Yale. The ten seasons of work from to – were a joint enter-
prise between Yale and the Académie des Inscriptions, with the agreement
of the French mandatory authorities and the Syrian government, and a con-
tract to divide the moveable finds between Yale and the National Museum
in Damascus. The extremely dangerous and unsettled conditions in which
the work was conducted are described in Velud’s article of .^3
Apart from the first season, which took place in spring , and lasted two
months, the remaining nine seasons occupied about six months each, from
October or November to about April. The work will always be associated
with the name of Rostovtzeff, and rightly so. But it is absolutely essential, if
we are to understand the results of the excavations, to appreciate the point
made in the introduction to the firstReport, namely that he and Cumont are
described as thescientificdirectors.
I have tried to stress elsewhere, in a brief paper inViestnik Drevnei Istorii,^4
that the involvement of Cumont and Rostovtzeff in the excavations was fun-
damentally a matter of conception and interpretation. Preconception, one
might say: for Rostovtzeff had actually promised Cumont in advance that
the excavations would reveal a Mithraeum—and so, by some miracle, on
Rostovtzeff ’s visit in , they did. Cumont, summoned to Dura after the
. Ch. Velud, ‘‘Histoire des recherches à Doura-Europos. Contexte historique régional
des fouilles de Doura entre les deux Guerres mondiales,’’Syria (): –.
. F. Millar, ‘‘M. I. Rostovtzeff i yevo rol’ v rukovodtsve raskopkami v Dura-Europos,’’
Viestnik Drevnei Istorii/ (): –, which gives an unjustifiably limited assessment
of the personal involvement of Cumont and Rostovtzeff in the excavations.